Monday, May 19, 2014

KLS says "hang fire on cottage hospital's future"

A COMMUNITY group has asked Denbighshire County Council
to hang fire on deciding the future of Llangollen’s former cottage hospital
until the town’s planned new health centre is opened.

Martin Crumpton, chair of Keep Llangollen Special
(KLS) recently wrote to Denbighshire planning chiefs voicing his organisation’s
concern that should the cottage hospital
be redeveloped while the proposed health centre fails to materialise,
Llangollen would be “permanently and irrevocably be left with nothing, just the
GP surgery which for years has been chronically short of space for its 9,000
registered patients.”

He also outlined KLS’s concerns
about pedestrian access to the new health centre, planned for the site of the
derelict River Lodge, off the A539.

He received a reply from Iolo McGregor, Corporate Improvement Officer, Business
Improvement & Modernisation, which said: “In order to improve the
pedestrian route to the proposed health centre, we have identified a couple of
locations where pedestrians will be able to cross the road in order to avoid
the section of Mill Street with no pavement.

“Each crossing point
will consist of dropped kerbs, tactile paving and a ‘build-out’. A build-out is
where the road is narrowed on one side by extending the pavement out to the
centre line of the road thereby halving the distance that pedestrians will need
to cross.

“Build-outs also force
traffic from one direction to give way, thereby also creating a traffic calming
effect, which will reduce speeds and thus further improve pedestrian safety.

“Additionally, should
users not wish to walk, during the times when the new facility will be dealing
with patients, there are currently four buses an hour operating between
Llangollen town centre and the hospital site. Betsi Cadwaladr University Health
Board has agreed to provide shelters for passengers using the bus.”

Mr Crumpton was told by
the planners that the future of the cottage hospital and the possibility of the
health centre failing to go ahead were matters for the health board and not the
county council.

He has now written back
to the council, saying: “The public
consultation for planning application 03/2014/0472 (demolition of the cottage hospital)
ends soon – June 3 - and we’ve only just been informed of the measures proposed
to make access to the planned health centre build along Mill Street safe.

“Our evaluation of those measures casts doubt on
the viability of the new primary health centre which, in turn, makes the need
to retain the cottage hospital important and urgent, if not imperative.

“We ask you to withhold the Decision Notice on PA
03/2014/0472 until the new health centre has been completed.

“If, having evaluated our concerns, your intention is to
permit the redevelopment of the Riverside Lodge then we ask for a sensible,
precautionary compromise - construct the traffic-calming measures first or at
least simulate them with cones and temporary lights.

“This approach has the virtue of finding if a different
approach is needed, or even if there is another solution.

“That stretch has been identified as unsafe and if our fears
turn out to be unfounded they would have to have been constructed anyway, so
there’s no additional cost involved.

“If the measures fail and have to be removed then the costs
will only run into thousands rather than the millions at risk in building a health
centre which patients can’t reach safely.”The planning application for the old cottage hospital calls for redevelopment of the site by way of the demolition of existing buildings and the erection of six social housing units with associated access and parking provision.

KLS has a number of concerns about pedestrian access to
the new health centre site, including:

·Night-time visibility
of the build-outs.

·18-wheelers, emergency
services and tourist coaches being unable to drive through a narrowed carriageway.

·Deliveries of
locomotives by wide flat-loader to Llangollen Railway becoming “impossible”. It
says the railway shares this concern.

·The proximity of Wern
Road, the new pedestrian crossing and the northern end of Castle Street at the
bridge to t.he beginning of the pinch-point on Mill Street means it would take
no more than six queuing cars to gridlock Llangollen and might lead to the A5 also
being blocked, fears KLS.